adaptec 2940

[David Hogan dhog@lore.plan9.cs.su.oz.au]

> Good luck.  If you check the mail archives, you'll see that some people
> have been waiting over a year (since 9/95 for me) for Adaptec to send the
> docs.  It took around a year to get a programmer's manual for the old 1542C
> (and I had actually asked for the 1542CF manual.)

> I usually call every six months or so and they tell me "they're still on
> back-order."  Last time I called, they told me they really only wanted
> "certain people" to write drivers, which is why they won't send the docs.
> Suffice it to say Adaptec won't be getting any more of my money.

Interesting.  After I wrote that last mail, I located the 1-800 number
and ordered the 7880 docs.  The lady I spoke to said it would take
about 7-10 days for the docs to reach me.  She didn't attempt to verify
whether I was "certain people" or not.  Perhaps verification consists
of shredding my request when it reaches the distribution centre because
my address is not internal to Adaptec?  I certainly hope not!

> The FreeBSD/Linux driver is probably the best (only?) public source for
> AIC-7xxx information.  There's a maliing list for the driver:  send
> "subscribe aic7xxx" to majordomo@freebsd.org.  The list is archived at
> http://confused.ume.maine.edu/~aic7xxx/.

The driver contains references to the manual (for the 7770) and
the 1-800 number they used to get it.  So, apparently this works
(or worked) for somebody!

P.S. S3 very kindly sent me the full details on their ViRGE chip;
at least some companies are being good to developers...